Monday, February 11, 2013

Introversion and the Esoteric

People are evenly split between introverts and extroverts
and yet for various reasons, some societies marginalize either personality type.
Psychologists tell us how those personality types differ, but I think we
inevitably interpret those findings from our philosophical and religious
perspectives. After laying out the psychological distinction, based on psychologist
Laurie Helgoe’s article, Revenge of the Introvert, I delve into some
philosophical and religious interpretations.

Introverts vs Extroverts

In Revenge of the Introvert, Helgoe explains
the psychological differences between introverts and extroverts, and speaks to
the conflicts that can arise between someone of either personality type and her
society, depending on whether that society is friendlier to one type or the
other. Part of her introduction summarizes her article, which I’ll quote here:

“Although there is no precise dividing line, there are
plenty of introverts around. It's just that perceptual biases lead us all to
overestimate the number of extraverts among us (they are noisier and hog the
spotlight). Often confused with shyness, introversion does not imply social
reticence or discomfort. Rather than being averse to social engagement,
introverts become overwhelmed by too much of it, which explains why the
introvert is ready to leave a party after an hour and the extravert gains steam
as the night goes on.

“Scientists now know that, while introverts have no special
advantage in intelligence, they do seem to process more information than others
in any given situation. To digest it, they do best in quiet environments,
interacting one on one. Further, their brains are less dependent on external
stimuli and rewards to feel good.

“As a result, introverts are not driven to seek big hits of
positive emotional arousal--they'd rather find meaning than bliss--making them
relatively immune to the search for happiness that permeates contemporary
American culture. In fact, the cultural emphasis on happiness may actually
threaten their mental health. As American life becomes increasingly competitive
and aggressive, to say nothing of blindingly fast, the pressures to produce on
demand, be a team player, and make snap decisions cut introverts off from their
inner power source, leaving them stressed and depleted. Introverts today face
one overarching challenge--not to feel like misfits in their own culture.”

So introversion isn’t the same as shyness. The shy person
wants more social interaction but lacks the knowhow, whereas the introvert
isn’t even interested in that interaction. As Helgoe’s headline says,
“introverts would rather be entertained by what’s going on in their heads than
by seeking happiness.” Introverts prefer thinking to action. Science shows that
the introvert cognitively processes more of what she perceives than does the
extrovert, and so the introvert needs time and silence to think about that deeper
experience. The introvert has “a preference for solitude, reflection, internal
exploration of ideas vs. active engagement and pursuit of rewards in the
external/social world.” Scientists theorize “that given their higher level of
brain activity and reactivity, introverts limit input from the environment in
order to maintain an optimal level of arousal. Extraverts, on the other hand,
seek out external stimulation to get their brain juices flowing.” The extrovert
doesn’t analyze her thoughts as much as the introvert, and so is stimulated
more by what’s going on in her environment; in fact, the extrovert has larger
“brain structures responsible for sensitivity to rewards,” and so seeks out
external stimulation to satisfy her need for social validation. By contrast,
“Introverts are collectors of thoughts, and solitude is where the collection is
curated and rearranged to make sense of the present and future.”

Helgoe points to some interesting negative consequences of
introversion. First, “extensive internal dialogue, especially in response to
negative experiences, can set off a downward spiral of affect. And indeed,
anxiety and depression are more common among introverts than extraverts.”
Moreover, “introverts are more self-critical than others--but also more
realistic in their self-assessments. Call it depressive realism.” I’ll return
to this in a moment. Second, though, there’s the social conflict in countries
like the United States, which is home to a “cult of extraversion.” In that sort
of materialistic, socially Darwinian society, the ultimate goal in life is not
to philosophize, to understand, or to create; rather, the goal is to be happy,
which means to feel the pleasure that comes with success in the marketplace and
to enjoy the popularity and material wealth sustained or brought by that
success.

This is to say that since the 1970s, after the backlash
against the socialist revolution in the 60s, the effective American religion, which has nothing whatsoever to do
with Jesus, has been crafted by that economy’s biggest players, the large
corporations and related think tanks, infotainment outlets, lobbyists and
captured politicians. As has been known since the ancient Greeks, the more open
the society the more vulnerable it is to demagogues, and in the US in recent
decades the demagogues that have most shaped American culture advocate ideals
that presuppose extroversion. The economic reasons for this are clear: there’s more money to be made from
extroverts than from introverts. Those who have a greater neurological need
for external stimulation are more easily tempted and trained by sellers of
products, most of which aren’t needed and thus have to be sold by dubious lines
of reasoning. An introvert sees a clumsily fallacious ad and thinks long and
hard before acting, whereas an extrovert is more likely to make an impulse
purchase. The introvert is thus the harder sell, so in a capitalistic economy
with no strong cultural counterweight to the capitalistic ideology (in the Marxist
sense of “ideology”), like the US where its Christianity is laughably
irrelevant, that sort of economic consideration comes to determine the
population’s highest values.

Some Philosophical Context of Introversion

Helgoe’s article is informative but limited. On the one
hand, the psychologist models her discipline on the hard sciences like physics,
mathematics, and chemistry. Thus, psychology is supposed to be purely
descriptive and objective, not to mention rigorous and exact. On the other
hand, psychology distinguishes between health and illness, and between function
and dysfunction, and these distinctions are normative. The
psychologist borrows the values and ideals needed to generate those
distinctions from society. As for a discussion of those values, that’s where
psychology needs to become philosophical rather than scientific. So Helgoe’s
article walks the tightrope of describing the difference between the two
personality types and of highlighting dangers for introverts, but the needed
social context to understand introversion at the philosophical level is
naturally absent from her article.

For example, when she says that the introvert isn’t just
highly self-critical but also realistic
in her self-assessment, and that the introvert is prone to anxiety and
depression, she implies that what spares the extrovert is delusion (as opposed to realism). Helgoe calls the introvert’s
anxiety and depression the results of a “downward spiral of affect,” which is a
pseudoscientific way of making a value judgment. Moreover, there’s a
contradiction here. First, Helgoe says that extensive internal dialogue leads
to this downward spiral of emotion such as anxiety, but then she says the
introvert is more realistic than the extrovert. If the introvert’s thoughts are
based more in reality, why speak of anxiety as though it were disconnected from
reality, lying at the bottom of a downward spiral?

One point that’s missing from Helgoe’s article and that
makes sense of these tensions can be summed up in three words: reason is accursed. The
introvert thinks more than the extrovert (which isn’t to say the introvert is
more intelligent); those who think a lot tend to perceive more of the real
world; ultimately, the real world isn’t as we’d prefer it to be and indeed
confronts us with an existential predicament; therefore, the introvert tends to
be anxious and depressed rather than happy. That argument reveals the
philosophical aspect of introversion.

An objection springs to mind: highly deluded people can
think a lot too, because they have overactive imaginations, so just because
you’re stimulated more by your thoughts than by the outer world, doesn’t mean
you’re more in touch with reality. But imagining is only one kind of thinking.
An introvert may create a worldview, collecting and curating thoughts, as
Helgoe says, but she also strives to improve that worldview by asking
questions, raising doubts, and following logical implications. Anxiety
disorders are indeed matters of following rules that have lost touch with reality
in that the rules lack proportion. For example, there’s the irrational fear of
germs. But once again, this is creativity run amok. So if introverts tend to
think more in general, as opposed to
being just more likely to imagine unrealities, introverts will stay humble
enough to ask tough questions about their ideas, thus keeping some sense of
proportion. That is, the introvert will test her ideas by rational methods and
so she’ll be less likely to succumb to politically correct delusions.

By contrast, to fit in and be happy, the extrovert will need
to appear, at least, to affirm popular opinions regardless of whether those
opinions are realistic. As to whether the extrovert really is more deluded than
the introvert, this is hard to say, assuming the extrovert doesn’t think so
much, because the test of whether someone really believes something or is just
faking it has two parts. First, you check whether the person holds the belief
even after she thinks long and hard about it. Second, you check whether she
puts that belief into practice. The extrovert can’t pass either part of the
test, but that’s only because she may not
have beliefs at all. She has no deep thoughts, because she doesn’t usually stop
and think. Sure, there will be patterns in her behaviour, but those will be
shaped by her genetics and her environment, not by her independent mental
activity. However, this would be so only for the pure extrovert. As Helgoe points out, though, there’s a continuum
between the two personality types, and most people are partly introverted and
partly extroverted. Most extroverts are thus only more extroverted than
introverted.

As for the connection between depressive realism and the conflict
between the individual and society, knowing the reality of the happiness
industry tends to detach the knower from the culture created to serve that
industry, and so again the introvert’s conflict with capitalistic societies isn’t
just about brain structures. Perhaps the extrovert’s brain is more driven to
seek happiness in the form of a wealth of social rewards, but there’s an
interesting philosophical point here as well: such happiness is delusory. Those who recognize our common
existential predicament, that the world is not what we’d prefer it to be and
that we don’t truly belong anywhere; that death makes
life ridiculous by being the great equalizer and that sex is embarrassing and horrific and thus kept secret; and that there is no God or perfect justice, nor much rational justification of
morality appreciate that happiness is unbecoming.
To seek a life that will make you happy, you have to ignore or deny all of that
and fill your head, if anything, with memes, corporate jingles, and politically correct happy-talk, which conventional thoughts usually
begin as instruments of social control. A class of consumers
had to be created and must now be maintained for the sake of the new world order.
Countries like China produce cheap goods and other countries must purchase
those goods. Advertisements consist literally of lies or of grossly deficient
arguments, and the extroverts who try to be happy in the conventional sense
literally buy into the materialistic worldview that’s only an economically
useful distraction rather than being philosophically (existentially, ethically,
or aesthetically) well-justified.

What I’ve been calling existential cosmicism is an example
of a worldview that I believe is well-justified in those ways. Introverts are
more likely to gravitate to it, because such a dark worldview is obviously
detrimental to the most conventional life project of being a useful member of
the American-led social order, and the introvert has contempt for that project
or is at least indifferent to it. To think much about the reality of that
project, and to notice how it conflicts with the call for existential
authenticity, is to remove yourself--to some extent at least--from that social
order. The more you’re appalled by advertisements, for example, the fewer goods
you’ll buy, but assuming you live in a country that’s supposed to consume more
than it produces, the less you consume the less economically useful you are.
And in a society in which the dominant values spring ultimately from the
cynical defense of a stealth oligarchy, the economically useless
members of society are marginalized and demonized.

But these relatively useless citizens are also in the know. In
fact, there are two groups that understand the dark reality of how the new
world order (the technoscientific, democratic, capitalistic, American-led, and
effectively atheistic one) works. There are the oligarchs and especially the
plutocrats who benefit the most from this world order, and there are the
introverts who, for philosophical or religious reasons, detach themselves from
it as omegas. The oligarch is most likely a sociopath, and it’s
interesting to note that a sociopath combines traits of pure introverts and of
pure extroverts. The sociopath thinks a lot but feels very little, thus having
no moral compunctions to prevent him from achieving his goals by harming
others. But to harm others he must disguise his nature and indeed must be an
expert liar. Thus, he’ll seem friendly and outgoing even though he won’t really
care about anyone else. He’ll act as an extrovert, but he’ll think like an
introvert. He’ll need to be socially accepted to avoid being identified and
locked up, but he’ll understand the danger he poses and that his life is a lie.
When a sociopath rises to the top of a power hierarchy because of his lack of
compassion, he becomes a key player in shaping the propaganda that exploits
extroverts, turning them into robotic consumers.

Then there are the outcasts, omegas, artists, philosophers,
and seekers who likewise understand that social conventions in a materialistic
society are instruments of social control rather than truths that connect us
with reality. But these hyper-rational introverts also have the emotions that
take them out of the social game. Introverts understand social reality and are
horrified by it, whereas oligarchs understand and run the social systems. So
when Helgoe says that an introvert needs to worry about being a “misfit” in a
materialistic society that favours extroverts, I take it the above is part of
the philosophical context that gives meaning to that statement.

Religion and the Personality Types

Just as the psychological distinction between the personality
types is incomplete without the philosophical context that can deal directly
with the normative issues, without the threat of scientism, so too that context
is incomplete. At some point, we reach the ultimate questions of what sort of
person we ought to be and what society should be like. These questions are the
least practical because they’re the most idealistic. Certainly, only an
introvert would ponder them at any length and only then to curate the art
gallery of her ideas, as it were, to see whether her worldview is maximally
coherent. But when we move to the deepest questions, we come up against matters
of ultimate concern, which the existential theologian Paul Tillich did well to
identify with matters of religious faith.

As I said, American-led societies are effectively atheistic
and materialistic; elsewhere, I’ve stressed their Scientism, meaning their
secular humanism and the centrality of technoscience to their
discourses. Their nominal religion is some brand of monotheism, but
their ultimate concerns are defined by transhumanism, pragmatism, and consumerism.
What Westerners care about most is to empower themselves with science and
technology (transhumanism), to give them greater control over their natural
life (pragmatism) but also to distract them from philosophically understanding
that life; in place of that understanding, Westerners want to be happy
in the materialistic sense (consumerism). As Helgoe points out, extroverts are
more useful in these societies than introverts. Extroverts are attracted by the
rewards derived from power (transhumanism), they prefer action to thinking
(pragmatism), and they’re susceptible to the delusions of materialistic
happiness that are needed to sell schlock (consumerism). By contrast,
introverts are more likely to be outsiders in those societies.

And so the introvert seems to face a hard choice. Should she
try to be more extroverted to fit into a Western society and be happier? Which
is the better life in a deluded society, that of the anxious misfit or that of the
contented winner? In terms given by the movie The Matrix, should the introvert
be like Neo or like Cypher who tries to get back into the matrix? Mind you, I
don’t think we choose our religions
in the sense of our ultimate concerns, so much as try to discover what we’ve most
cared about all along. Religions aren’t like manufactured products that are all
lined up on the shelf, waiting for you to select your favourite. Those who do
shop around for a religion, perhaps creating their own eclectic worldview have
never been true members of any religion they’ve sampled; instead, they’re
seekers or skeptics. Introverts care a lot about thinking, and thinking puts
them in touch with unpleasant truths. They learn that reason is a curse, that
it shows us our existential predicament which we’d rather ignore. By contrast,
the extrovert prefers action and adventure, deeds rather than just talk, social
interaction rather than withdrawal. She affirms the world as it is rather than
stewing in self-pitying worries, but she too will confront the downside of her
personality type: she’s more susceptible to manipulation by the powers that be,
by the sociopathic rulers of the science-centered, American-led social order.

The key distinction in the introvert’s type of religion is
that between the esoteric and exoteric, since this distinction makes
sense of the social dynamic outlined above. In the modern context, the conflict
between introverts and their society is overtly economical, because a
science-centered religion (secular humanistic consumerism) has had to replace
obsolete theism as the effective religion of the dominant culture. So the
society that now most conflicts with introverts values happiness derived from labour
and consumption. Introverts are marginalized in such a society and come to
appreciate its absurdity. The introvert feels privileged to possess esoteric, subversive and thus unpopular wisdom,
whereas the extrovert is content with superficial, conventional, exoteric knowledge.
Before modern science, the introvert’s esoteric viewpoint was understood in
theistic terms: the introvert was thought to have a better grasp of God’s
revelation, and he withdrew from society as an ascetic because he believed he
belonged to a higher, spiritual plane. In the modern age, existentialism should
replace that theistic framework. The introvert isn’t vindicated in any
afterlife and there is no supernatural revelation. At best, she has existential
authenticity and deals heroically with the curse of her over-active brain; moreover,
she enjoys the dark comedy that’s apparent only from the social outsider’s
grasp of our existential situation.

The extrovert’s type of religion is quite different. For
her, thinking a lot is self-indulgent and self-defeating. Extroverts want to contribute
by building things, making a difference, learning about the world through an
array of experiences, and relating to people rather than just to an inner
museum of abstract ideas. The extrovert is interested most in people, places,
and possessions, not in ideas. Philosophy itself is a distraction from the
pursuit of a rich, full life. There’s no need to think so much,
because the world is full of potential experiences and all you have to do to
have them is act. Whereas the introvert
collects ideas, the extrovert collects experiences, and so perhaps a
fitting symbol of extroversion is the vacation photo album (or computer
directory). The introvert dotes on her ideas, whereas the extrovert lavishes
attention on her social networks, vacation plans, and material objects. When
she’s on vacation, collecting exotic experiences, she may capture a host of
snapshots so the experience can be converted into a series of material objects.
That way, she objectifies the places she visits and can more easily manage her
memories of them. Still, merely remembering an experience is a nod to
introversion. An extrovert should always want to actually broaden her
experiences rather than live in the past. Whereas the introvert’s hero is the
ascetic or antiheroic drifter, the extrovert’s is some combination of the explorer
and the alpha winner of social games.

Of course, none of the monotheistic religions suits the
extrovert. Jewish laws and customs unnecessarily restrict the experiences you
can have and Islam restricts them even more, while (authentic) Christianity
espouses asceticism in light of dualistic revelations about the relative
inferiority of fallen nature. In extroverted societies like the US, the extrovert’s
effective religion is just the set of myths and practices that celebrate the
dominant culture’s governing values, which I’ve already discussed
(transhumanism, pragmatism, and happiness/consumerism). The modern,
post-theistic form of the introvert’s religion is still inchoate, although I
think existentialism and cosmicism would be elements of it. As it stands, modern
introverts are on their own, although the internet paradoxically enables them
to organize and form special interest groups. Some Western introverts take
refuge in antiquated and preposterous worldviews, becoming priests in sell-out
religious institutions. Eastern introverts have more venerable ascetic
traditions in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, but these are still premodern
and not fully coherent ways of understanding natural reality. Perhaps an unembarrassing postmodern religion for introverts will arise, so that the
ultimate clash of civilizations won’t be between the secular West and the Islamic
world, but between the Western cult of extroversion and a culture based on the
introvert’s religion that begins with existential cosmicism.

16 comments:

WOW. *standing ovation*. Wow. You...great job. Excellent. Just...bravo. I stumbled across this entry...I can't remember how, but I'm a better person for it. Just...excellent. I'll have to take some time to digest how significant all of your insight were to me, but, thank you.

Are you writing a novel?! As soon as it becomes available I will definitely buy a copy!

When I first read your article 'Defending Existential Cosmicism" I couldn't believe that somebody was able to write down exactly how I felt about...everything!

Since we are introverts we struggle more. Trying being more like them and whats going to happen? More anxiety and depression. So they are just if not way more delusional than we are? Why can't we accept who we are? Why can't we accept that all of us have limitations and be humble about it? Well because if we are not maintaining 'normal' career, sexual and social reputations, they look at us and say "Hey buddy maybe you need more of what we have because then you will be happy".

An introvert may imitate what they think is normal.This just causes anxiety. Most of my friends are probably introverts. Its not pleasant when they strive to fit into the majority. They come off as dicks and you can see right through their bullshit. It usually comes down to "How come you are not having sex as much as us?" When an introvert starts playing that game they have already lost. Imagine being just the one man in a group that sees the world differently? Imagine being the only man who can see all the angles to this thing and is accused of being weird or a loser. He knows what it is. We are too fragile. And that's not a negative.Who is it exactly that we are appeasing?. Parents? Friends? Some other group? Are they looking out for us? Do they want us to join them or do they need us where we are so they can feel better about their mediocrity? Isn't that a nice thought?. Their status is dependent upon the people who lack the traits that they have or want. Since we live by comparison it's obvious that our place in the world is so important for the rest of them. They need us here to define themselves. But we don't need to compare ourselves to them and especially not to other people like us. Its going to be a lonely life if we keep trying to become somebody else. That's not to say we shouldn't have goals or strive to be better. But by accepting who we really are, I think, is the first step to liberation.

Thanks very much for this feedback. I think you're really on to something especially with some points you make near the end here. I've toyed with the idea of a broader sadomasochistic dynamic in societies, based on a documentary I saw once and a book I have but haven't read through. How do extroverts see introverts? Or more broadly, how do alphas see omegas? As nuisances that should be eliminated or as slaves that inevitably aggrandize the masters just by being around and by losing in mainstream, extroverted terms? And are introverts really more self-contented so that they don't have to define themselves in relation to something foreign? These are interesting questions.

I am writing a novel now. I've got about 100 pages so far and I'm quite proud of them. I'm planning for this book to be the first in a series.

A few months ago I was visiting two of my friends of who are married. They told me that their next door neighbour took his own life. I had met him before. He was a gentleman. He lived alone. He had no partner. His front garden was tended to regularly.He planted beautiful flowers and the grass was cut like a golf course. He earned good money and only recently he had been active in the neighbourhood committee. He drove a good car. He was no more than 33 years old. He left a short note. I don't know what it said.

My friends were quite upset as you can imagine. We discussed the possible reasons as to why he made the decision to end his life. We only speculated. I had the idea that being a man in this kind of culture is not easy. I'm speaking as a man. I've no idea about women. HA.

How many human beings on this planet would kill to have that kind of security that he had? He was a free man. He was young and reasonably wealthy. He obviously wanted to help somehow and be part of something. What was he thinking when he came home from work that night? He may have been a closet homosexual and was too ashamed to come out. Or he may have been abused or maybe he felt that life was fruitless and there was nothing more to it. Maybe his sex life was non existent and he couldn't make excuses for it. Maybe he yearned for honest communication like we do. Maybe he saw no point in earning more money. Maybe he believed that when he attained the objects of his desire everything would fall into place.

Or what about that emptiness that we feel? I'm sure as a human being and an insightful philosopher, you are aware of the emptiness of life? For me it comes as a shock. For a few weeks I may be saving money to buy a book or a video game or a new album. It might be a fantasy I have about what my weekend will be like after I finish college so I can finally have some time off. And whenever I acquire this object of my desire or have the experience I imagined, sometimes I have this realization of the whole emptiness of life. It's not a pleasant experience. I immediately feel the need to fill it. I think if one experiences this and stays with it to find out what it means, it can be replenishing. I think there may be real freedom in this emptiness. You can start again as if the past never mattered.

The conflict here is that the identity has vanished. There is no 'me' to speak of and everything I thought was real turns out to be a kind of illusion. This is a fragile state to be in. Many would turn to drugs to escape it. Or become a Christian or a Buddhist. Or maybe they don't see any other way of being so they grind away in the office like the neighbour was doing until it was only a matter of time. He needs to be naive and jump off the cliff like The Fool in a tarot deck. Just like when Neo was about to get out of the car and walk down that road again :-).

I'm not really sure what the point is of all this. It just came to me. I apologize for writing an essay here. Most of the time I can't comment on your blogs. Even though I understand what you write I have a limited vocabulary so I communicate better with stories.

Also! This is the only blog I have ever commented on in my life and probably the only I ever will. Good luck with the novel! I hope I'll have some money when the time comes. I can't even afford a pair of trousers at the moment! :-)

Thanks for your thought-provoking comments, Steve. I've been thinking of writing something on suicide, but it's a tricky subject.

I wonder if the emptiness you're talking about is found especially in a materialistic culture. Are all walks of life empty or just the life of consuming mass-produced products? I know what you mean, though, when you say that the anticipation is often more rewarding than achieving the goal.

But this gets to the heart of my blog. How do we make the best of the worst-case scenario? If we take on board the dark postmodern worldview (atheistic naturalism, cosmicism, moral subjectivism, etc), what then? Is there nothing for such informed people to believe in? Nothing that deserves their worship? I'm fascinated by this question of a fitting religion/mythos for our time. There are lots of New Age contenders and also the old standbys like Buddhism, plus the upstart of New Atheistic Scientism. I've got problems with all of them, but I'm trying here in this blog to put my finger on what omegas, introverts, outcasts, seekers, artists, atheistic naturalists and the like should turn to to satisfy their spiritual/philosophical longings.

We could use a really good story to cheer us all up. The Matrix came close for me, because of its Gnostic themes, but it's still ridden with Hollywood cliches (like the kiss that saves Neo at the end). Plus, you have to treat the whole thing as allegorical, since we're probably not brains in a vat.

I'm glad you're getting something out of my writings. And thanks again for your comments. I do appreciate them. In fact, I've recently added a widget to this blog that puts the recent comments up near the top at the right so they can be more easily accessed.

I'd just like to say that this is easily one of the best articles I've read about introversion and it's extremely well-written. It captures the essence of introversion and its relation to extroversion very well and describes the problems with how our society perceives them fantastically.

Thank you so much for writing this and I really hope you get more publicity out of this!

I am so glad for finding this post. I have long believed that our society has a hate/hate relationship with introverts. There is no room in it for us, unless it is as writers. There would be no literature without us. The reality is that we understand extraverts. We know what it is that makes them tick, we might not be able to emulate them, but we certainly understand them, sometimes even better than they understand themselves. Unfortunately extraverts have no clue on what it is like to be us, what is worse is that they do not feel there is anything they need to understand about us I often wander what the world would look like if I were an extravert. It is a fun exercise. And I can learn a lot from the experience. But extraverts cannot reciprocate. An extravert cannot see the world as one of us. Our world view is something they will never touch or know intimately. Our thoughts are forever beyond the boundaries of their experience. To them we are very much like Schrodinger’s cat, and abstraction, and abomination, something that cannot be fathom in concrete terms. I wander as to the why for this one way dilemma. Your post elucidates as to the cultural causes, nevertheless it is still a bit painful to be denigrated to the pile of the obsolete, the ugly and the undesirable. I think there are great parallels between introversion today and homosexuality back in the 70’s and 80’s. Both are seen as aberrations from the norm. Both are seen as a matter of choice that can be, and has to be, corrected. Both are seen as immoral; one offensive to god the other offending the market. Both can be a source of shame.Unfortunate the age of Byronic heroes is over; witness the rise of the John Galts.

Thanks! You make a number of interesting points. I like the contrast between Byron and Gault, although strictly speaking, a libertarian should defend the individual's right to be introverted. Anyway, the denigration of introverts is largely an American phenomenon, but since American culture has the most global reach, it effects people everywhere. I'm afraid that introverts will never feel at home in American-style culture, but the silver lining is that introverts are less likely to be interested in the superficial entertainments that are celebrated in that global monoculture. There's a connection between introversion and religious asceticism, or detachment from pop cultural pastimes. I write about this in my article "Revenge of the Omega Men," which can be found here:

I run a club for introverts with the most logical personality types (organized through the internet as you mentioned so we can easily find one another). Everything you have written here mirrors the thoughts that I have had and that have been driving my behavior - especially the part about the creation of a postmodern religion governed by introverts. This is something that has interested me for a very long time.

When that has actually happened, the world will be a much better place.

I was just lead here by a commenter after I wrote a post today on introverts and the nihilism.

I had no idea you were out there until now and I find myself pleased that there are others writing for introvert outsiders and trying to create worthwhile belief systems from the shambles of our consumerist society.

Yes, it's nice to find like-minded folks. I suspect there are more introverts than extroverts on the internet, though. For a clickable list of my main articles, check out the Map of the Rants at this blog's top-right corner:

Before, a smug and complacent mass consensus had the power to isolate us, shut us out, and certainly never let us near an audience.I know, because I spent my childhood exactly like that in the final years of the pre-internet age and it wasn't until connections got faster and more convenient than dial-up that the world really started to experience tremors.

It's the biggest real change I think since the spread of mass literacy and the printing press.We've haven't even begun to see its full implications...

I had to do a number of personality tests in school (not for medical but the school wanted to know strategies to help the students... doubt they could find any esp. for introverts who they often just claimed as being quiet or anti-social) but I came out Ambivert or lower than 10% more introvert or extrovert on them. I would love to hear what you think about Ambiverts because we seem to be not even though of. Just lumped in the closest catergory.

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About the Author

In this blog you'll find my philosophical rants within the undead god. What on earth is the "undead god," you ask, and why do I rant within it? Read on and find out or just look at how the planet and all of nature mindlessly evolve, setting the stage for our existential predicament. In the big picture, who I am doesn't matter at all and when I write here I write mostly with the big picture in mind. But if you're curious about some of my interests, see my blogger profile.